Baby Proofing Your Home

marleye — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:33:05 +0000

I don’t have any children. I’m a thirty-year old university student and career woman, yet, I feel like an expert of sorts on the whole baby front. Since the age of twelve, I have worked along side children, taught them, worked with parents and observed children in a myriad of environments. You see, I used to work with autistic children, and if you have a child that isn’t developmentally delayed, you have some semblance of what it might be like to have a child that is not only hyperactive and sensitive, but has very specific needs that a healthier child might now have to be concerned about. I’m also the only one out of all my friends that doesn’t have a baby, or isn’t working on pumping out tyke number two, so I’ve had a good seven years of careful observation and I’m grateful to my good friends for always allowing me to pepper with I’m sure what seemed at the time, to be perfectly nonsensical questions. And after watching twelve little bundles of joy walk through the doors of my friends houses, baby proofing was always a topic of discussion!

I recently read an article that claimed that nearly 25 million children fall victim to in-home accidents every year across North America! I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty disturbing statistic. I mean, there’s only 33 million people in Canada, so to think that 25 of them were having accidents in their home in any one year, it’s flabbergasting! So naturally, ensuring that your home is as safe as humanly possible is priority number one, and not something you should wait until the last minute to do. This isn’t like not having the nursery painted until the eleventh hour, this could be a matter of life or death for your precious cargo. So even before they roll over for the first time, be prepared!

First stop? The living room. This is the room of the house that you’re probably going to spend the majority of your time with your little ones. So get out your clipboard and write these down:

Install electrical outlet covers to ensure that baby can’t stick their little fingers or some object into the socket. This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be shocked to know how many babies are still electrocuted every year.
Put special locks on your windows to ensure that they can’t unlatch them and fall out.
Keep the living room area clean of toys as much as you possibly can. Someone is bound to slip and fall, and the last thing baby needs is a concussed parent, so keep it neat!
Hide and shorten any cords so there’s no threat of strangulation, or risk of baby pulling something like the television or stereo down on top of them.
Fasten any and loose pieces of furniture to the floor. This is something you should probably do anyway in case of earth quakes, but it’s important to ensure that baby can’t tip anything over like a chair or side table.
If you have any glass doors, make sure to pepper it with fun decals or stickers so when your little one is racing around the house at full speed, they don’t ram into the glass door.
Remove any and all space heaters or portable fans. It’s important to eliminate the risk of burns, and we all know that little ones like to stick their curious little fingers into every nook and cranny.

You don’t need to run your home like a corrections officer or a zookeeper, but it’s important to provide a fun, stimulating and safe environment for baby.

Create for Kids

Baby Proofing Your Home